Amlapura

Amlapura is the largest town in eastern Bali, the island to the east of Java, although the Indonesian guide books generally don’t consider Amlapura worth a visit unless you’ve already checked off the top-tier attractions. The area suffered a volcano eruption in 1963 and has never quite recovered. What remains of interest to the tourist are Amlapura’s three palaces, one of which is still used by some remnants of former royalty. The palaces, which are filled with Dutch paintings as much as the work of local artists, reminds one that Amlapura, originally known as Karangasem, was the center of a quisling kingdom—its rulers had acquiesced to Dutch rule in the late 19th century, and so were allowed to retain the trappings of their rule while other Balinese states were conquered. Vague divine retribution of a sort came via the volcano, Mount Agung, which killed 1500 people but spared the Mother Temple of Besakih. After the fire, the town’s name was officially changed from Karangasem to Amlapura: it was a sign of humility or an attempt to disguise the town so that the volcano would pass it by the next time round.

Bowie had gone to Amlapura in July 1989, as part of his Indonesian vacation after the first Tin Machine tour. The song he wrote about it is a mingle of colonial-era imagery (tall ships, flying Dutchmen, shore dwellers watching for “boogies”–i.e., bugis, seafaring traders and occasional pirates)* and of the recent past—the dead children buried under the lava in ’63, whose bodies, Bowie implies, serve as the soil for regeneration: flowers blooming around a statue’s mouth.

The Amlapura of Bowie’s chorus is a sacred dream-space that’s been soiled in some manner, whether via the guns and traders of the West or just by the essential grime of humanity. In his earlier song on Indonesia, the Road-to-Borneo adventure “Tumble and Twirl,” the mood was more absurdist, the most striking image being a rich man’s hilltop mansion piping sewage onto the allegedly pristine beaches. “Amlapura” is vaguer, mistier and feels out of time, a suggestion more than a song. Bowie sang his vocal a semitone flat in an attempt to convey sadness and loss, and he wound up contributing to the sense that the song isn’t finished, that it’s still coalescing into some more permanent form.

Tin Machine, working out the song in the studio, dampened down any attempt to rouse things—Hunt Sales’ drums, which had been prominent in early takes, were reduced to a few kick drum beats in the intro and first verse, with Hunt’s off-kilter fills only arriving in the second verse. Tony Sales’ bass is nearly inaudible, with the verses carried by three acoustic guitars (Gabrels, Bowie, Kevin Armstrong?) scanned across the spectrum—the guitars parked left and right strum the back-and-forth chord clusters (either C-D-C or Em-D-Em) while in the center another guitar plays arpeggios. Gabrels’ Steinberger playing (including an 8-bar solo over the intro chords) is similar to his neo-Dick Dale work on the surf instrumentals cut in the same period (“Needles on the Beach,”“Exodus”).

With “Amlapura,” “Shopping for Girls” and the surf songs, Tin Machine II seems in retrospect Bowie’s half-baked attempt to revisit Lodger, another record on which he made a stateless, traveling figure a recurring image. But then Bowie had been in fighting strength, with the finest supporting band of his life backing him and with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti as directors and provocateurs. Tin Machine II is a record of a far diminished time, with even its highlights like “Amlapura,” lovely and evanescent, suggesting more than they offer. If Bowie was reduced to eking out small victories, making pawn’s moves with tiny mood pieces like “Amlapura,” it’s still heartening: Bowie was recovering his ambition, if not yet his voice.

Recorded ca. September-October 1989, Studios 301, Sydney, with overdubs in 1990-March 1991. Bowie cut an Indonesian vocal as well, which was used as the B-side on the 12″ single of “You Belong In Rock n’ Roll” (London LONX 305), and so added another language to Bowie’s tally (total so far: Italian, French, German, Spanish). Performed throughout the 1991-92 tour, with a version from Hamburg, 24 October 1991, appearing on the DVD/VHS version of Oy Vey Baby. A few alternate takes of “Amlapura” have circulated on bootleg—an instrumental track and three other takes that differ mainly in having more prominent drums, guitar (the instrumental has Gabrels soloing throughout the song) and Bowie using slightly different phrasing on his vocals.

* There’s some debate whether “bugi” is the source of “bogeyman” (the OED makes a reference to “Malay pirates” in its first use of the word).

Top: Irène Jacob, The Double Life of Véronique (Kieslowski, 1991).

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Agree completely with your assessment as well – a minor but beautiful song. Love the Hendrixian dynamics in the fade. I should also add that something in the song has for me always called back to the Space Oddity era (though maybe it’s just the acoustic guitars).

Nice background information here; I think lots of db fans (me) thought this was a dreamt-up or invented name, fitting the dreamy swirl of the track….
Kind of a buried jewel in the crown, a late and unexpected return to form, one that wouldn’t ever really be revisited… something that might almost be buried under the smoking debris of one of the earlier periods. You could almost hear this as a ManWhoSoldTheWorld track, darks and brights mingled in the mix. (In fact, db performed this and ‘TMWSTW’, by then more famous because of its cover version via cobain, in the ’92 tour, as mentioned above).
Trippy in that “reminiscent of places never visited” kind of surreal way. And as mentioned, lovely.

Never liked this song. The verses are quite pretty, but when he starts singing ‘I dreeeaaaaam of Amlapuuuuraaaa’ I immediately press the skip button.
I really enjoy the rest of the album though. Apart from this one and Hunt Sales songs it’s the most enjoyable album he made in a long time.

Scratch my previous comment. It took numerous listens but the song’s really grown on me. It is quite beautiful though I still think the chorus could be better. Too much drama in the melody and a line like “Never saw in all my life a more shining jewel” really is beneath Bowie.

Is Reeves alluding to “Andy Warhol” with those little Spanish runs? And is this where Bowie’s late-period fascination with his early material begins? I’m not sure, but I do find this song a little oasis of loveliness in an otherwise ugly world. Much like Bali itself.

Really quite a lovely song. I actually first heard this on the expanded 2003 Sound + Vision box set. Very ethereal and mystical, with a saddened undercurrent of tragedy in lines like “I would burn you if you should die” and “All the dead children buried standing”. Not my choice of favorite from TM2 (that would be Baby Universal), but I would have to consider it one of the highlights.

BTW, Bowie would later record an Indonesian-language version of Don’t Let Me Down & Down, from his next album Black Tie White Noise…

I like this song. And in relation to the reference that it’s a poor man’s Lodger track, I actually think it’s vastly superior to anything on at least half that album – and I like Lodger! In fact, to put things in perspective, I think Repetition is a poor man’s Tin Machine track.🙂

Judging from many peoples reactions to some fine TM songs, I wonder if songs like Amlapura had been released under the Bowie name, would they have then been given due consideration.

For me, one of the 3-4 cuts I would have saved from TMII to make a successful EP from it. Evocative and lovely, I have to admit that I far prefer the Indonesian version since Bowie’s vocals work better as pure sound with no left brain lyric pathways to trip the song up. The lyrics, are less than adroit, but the music is faultless.

I’ve been listening to this repeatedly over the last few days and I’d go so far as to say it’s a Bowie classic. The drifting impressions of the lyrics are beautiful, and the frailty of the vocal combined with the soaring melody produces a haunting effect. Nicholas Pegg’s lukewarm review in the superb Complete DB is one of the few times I disagree with him.

Thanks for the post, great insight, as always. It would be awful convenient to use this song as proof, but I feel like this is a hint towards where his ashes might have ended up on Bali. I loved the verses on this one, so elegant, with the “hey heys” getting mixed up in my teenage memories with the “hey now hey now” from Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House (I listened to Tin Machine records in my early teens and never really liked them, so I only ended up revisiting them this year). What’s sad is how mediocre the chorus (with the “I dream of…” cliche and an inferior melody) is and how overall mistreated the song was. It was obviously a sincere, heartfelt number for Bowie, and I wonder what it could’ve sounded like if he recorded it in 1995 with Eno, 2001-2003 with Visconti or, hell why not, wouldn’t it fit nicely on Blackstar? Sure, it would have to be rewritten, but imagine how symbolic it would’ve sounded.

You beat me to it. I’m sure that Bali made a strong impression on Bowie and I read this song (in retrospect) as being very personal for him.

Not sure about it’s inclusion on Blackstar. For us, maybe, but we wouldn’t want superfans stomping all over Amlapura looking for him, would we? And neither would he. I sure there were a lot of private places and moments in the world that Bowie kept to himself.

I find this song perfectly exquisite, like an orchid found in the jungle. I hope Bali retains its freedom now the Indonesian mainland has begun its sabre rattling at this jewel of an island.